Democrats Emerge From Closet, Oppose Democracy

How many Democrats are National Socialists at heart? Quite a few, I suspect, and every now and then the Democrats’ totalitarian urges break through to the surface. Thus, we have the Governor of North Carolina, Bev Perdue, suggesting that we “ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years.” The press assures us that she was just kidding. I would modestly submit that suspending elections is not something an elected executive should kid about.

Not quite two weeks ago, but noticed only today because of a link from Drudge–which, unlike the New Republic, lots of people read–President Obama’s former budget director, Peter Orszag, explained that “we need to counter the gridlock of our political institutions by making them a bit less democratic.” Just a bit? Orszag provides a valuable window into the thinking of the Obama administration when he writes that we–who, exactly, is “we?”–need to “jettison the Civics 101 fairy tale about pure representative democracy” and find “ways around our politicians.”

Sure: because the problem with democracy, as seen by liberals, as by National Socialists, is that voters have an inexplicable habit of electing conservatives. The elites really shouldn’t let this happen; or, in any event, should deprive the voters’ preference for conservatism of any practical significance. That is what a great many Democrats really think. As the Obama administration sinks beneath the waves, the Democrats’ anti-democratic urges will continue to rise to the surface.

UPDATE: Aides to Governor Perdue said she was joking when she called for suspension of Congressional elections, but someone came up with the audio, and whatever she was doing, it wasn’t joking:

On what authority did Governor Perdue think that Congressional elections could be canceled? The mind boggles!